Describing this and a slew of other negotiated agreements, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh - on his maiden visit to Dhaka - said the two countries had "agreed on a new architecture for partnership".

The landmark enclave deal is expected to give a new lease of life to over 50,000 inhabitants of the area who have been struggling to eke out a decent livelihood for decades.

The breakthrough was made following discussions on the 162 enclaves (51 in India and 111 in Bangladesh) between Singh and his Dhaka counterpart Sheikh Hasina. Enclaves are defined as pockets of a country's territory surrounded by the other's.

They have been a bone of contention between successive regimes in India and Bangladesh and were created centuries ago when local kings in undivided Bengal and Assam exchanged pieces of land while gambling or playing chess.

The Indian enclaves in Bangladesh are located in four districts - Panchagarh, Lalmonirhat, Kurigram and Nilphamari. All of Bangladesh's enclaves lie in West Bengal's Cooch Behar district. The agreement enables Bangladesh to retain the Dahagram and Angarpota enclaves.

According to a recent headcount conducted jointly by both sides, the total population in the enclaves is 51,000. Officials of the two countries admitted that this number was much lower than the figure estimated earlier.

The headcount revealed that 34,000 people resided in the Indian enclaves in Bangladesh and there were 17,000 inhabitants in the latter's enclaves.

The earlier unofficial estimates pegged the population of the 111 Indian enclaves at around 100,400, and that of the 51 Bangladeshi enclaves inside India at 44,000. Interestingly, 56 enclaves are not inhabited, of which 37 are Indian. Some others have a population of less than 10 people.

ALMOST 3,000 acres of Bangladesh's land lies in India and India has around 3,500 acres inside Bangladesh. Union home minister P. Chidambaram had given the lowdown on the pact in the Rajya Sabha recently.

He had explained that people living in an enclave "shall be given the right of staying on as nationals of the state" to which the area will be transferred. He had referred to the 1974 agreement between Indira Gandhi and Sheikh Mujibur Rehman.

The pact signed by Singh allows residents of an Indian enclave in Bangladesh to seek local citizenship once the area becomes a part of Bangladesh. Such inhabitants also have the right to return to their original country from which they will be allotted land. Hasina's international affairs adviser Dr Gowher Rizvi said the land boundary issue had remained unresolved since 1947. "There were pressing demands to address it," he explained.

People in these enclaves have been asking for rights and facilities as citizens for decades.

Bangladesh's leading English newspaper The Daily Star quoted Abdul Latif Sarkar of Garati enclave in Bangladesh as saying: "People in enclaves live in squalid conditions amid lack of adequate employment opportunity, infrastructure, educational institutions, electricity and medical facilities. Most people are below poverty level."

Johir Ali, a dweller of Sreerampur enclave in Bangladesh, struck an optimistic note and told the daily: "With the signing of the bilateral deal, we will get all the facilities as Bangladeshi citizens."

Expressing similar sentiments, Bhitorkuti enclave resident Amzad Hossain said it was his dream to live a free life and hoped that it would materialise soon. The issue of the exchange of enclaves has, however, been opposed by some sections in India.

On the eve of Singh's departure for Dhaka, the main Opposition party BJP expressed its apprehension over the arrangement. The party feared that India may give away more territory than it would get.

The BJP also claimed that the UPA government had failed to spell out whether or not those living in the enclaves would be told to cross the border to the country whose citizenship they held.

The party wanted to know that if this was not the case, would the territory be demarcated? The deal on the exchange of the enclaves was a part of the larger boundary package that included adversely possessed lands, demarcation of 6.5 km of undefined border, allowing-Bangladeshis to use the Tin Bigha Corridor round the clock and finalisation of strip maps. For the first time, the two countries prepared strip maps of their 4,156-km boundary. These will be useful in settling border-related disputes.

A strip map is a non-scaled drawing of a route to include key points along the border and usually incorporates distances, roadside features and town facilities on a simple flip-over style map.